apron-strings

Women had apron-strings and were prone to tie them about any man who looked twice in their direction.

Chapter 2 2010

Not that she was not a nice bit of a woman, healthy and strapping and good to look upon, also a very excellent dancer, but that she was a woman with all a woman's desire to rope him with her apron-strings and tie him hand and foot for the branding.

Chapter 2 2010

It advises them: "You can leave your bed linens, and for that matter, security blankets and apron-strings behind."

William K. Black: Sport: The Gay Antidote? 2010

He wastes his life and energies away among us, tied to our apron-strings.

The History of Pendennis 2006

Pray, my Lady Armida, what did you mean by flinging your spells over me in youth, so that not glory, not fashion, not gaming-tables, not the society of men of wit in whose way I fell, could keep me long from your apron-strings, or out of reach of your dear simple prattle?

The Virginians 2006

And when there he would sit and read; and once when Cecilia essayed to talk to him, he told her to keep her apron-strings to herself.

The Claverings 2005

The open air wrapped her round, playing with the soft down on the back of her neck, or blew to and fro on her hips the apron-strings, that fluttered like streamers.

Madame Bovary 2003

I am much obliged to you; I am infinitely grateful, but I need not be tied to your apron-strings until I die!

Bel Ami 2003

Blue feelers of currents sprouted from the sun's angry red spots, flowing out with the gale of particles, sweeping by the apron-strings of Earth's magnetic fields.

Asimov's Science Fiction 2003

But little Berthe was there, between the window and the work-table, tottering on her knitted shoes, and trying to come to her mother to catch hold of the ends of her apron-strings.

Madame Bovary 2003